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For This Time Only – A Review of 夢遊病者 (Sleepwalker)’s 一期一会

They say lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice. Well, I am here to tell you: they couldn’t be more fucking wrong. The debut album ‘5772’ from multinational headmelter psychedelic crew 夢遊病者 (Sleepwalker) was a shining, utterly bizzare bolt from the blue; and now the trio of PBV (Guitars, Bow, Vocals, Effects), NN (Fretless Bass) and KJM – (Drums, Percussion) have flown from various places around the globe to meet up and send another streak of once-in-a-lifetime freak voltage directly into the collective craniums of discerning experimental extreme music consumers.

‘一期一会’ is the title of this new lysergic beast, which translates to “For This Time Only, Never Again” and could equally refer to either the mode of its construction being recorded live in one hit with any additional overdubs dropped in later, or that this band is something quite unlike anything you’ll ever experience or will ever exist again and the fact that you are alive to see it is incredible in itself. In keeping with this theme I’m going to try something a little different and overly self indulgent: a stream of consciousness review as I sit and listen properly to this for the first time. At 1am. I apologise in advance.

Pressing play… Now.

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– Nice intro. Ominous, yet calming.

– Here we go… Bongos. Of course there are bongos.

– Vocals are mental. Washed out and barely straining through the music, the perfect accompaniment…

– Next track… Carnage, yet not carnage. They hit some tweaky melodies, getting into weird progressive tech like I want to say Electro Quarterstaff or something, but way more baked and black. Therefore obviously much, much better

– Next track… I don’t even know what to say about this. It’s going to fly off the rails and decapitate several people on the way

– Where am I?

– Those creaks… Were they ambient sound? Or played on instruments? Outstanding.

– Now this is a crescendo. This shit is fucking wild. I think this song is going to make me explode or transcend reality or something. I mean… Fuck off.

– The structure of this album as a whole has been incredible. I wish more bands built these dynamics over the course of a full-length

– Final song… Savage beauty in an alien world. Swirling emotions and shimmering whispers. I swear you could listen to this album twenty times in a row and you’d still be picking out fresh intricacies every time

– ‘No Clinking of Glasses’, spot on. Shit sounds like a dinner party in hell through the second half

– How do you write something like this?

– …It’s over? Hasn’t it only been five minutes or so..? Fucking felt like it. Time to push play again. Goodbye…